At Larry J. Sabato's Crystal Ball, Alan I. Abramowitz's "Republican Electoral College Plan Would Undermine Democracy" provides a revealing overview of the latest GOP effort to dominate politics through morally-corrupt 'reforms'. In an introduction to Abramowitz's post, editor Sabato, who writes from a nonpartisan perspective, has this to say about the revelations in the post:

We have asked Crystal Ball Senior Columnist Alan Abramowitz, Alben W. Barkley Professor of Political Science at Emory University, to examine the proposal and outline its likely effects. As we suspected, it would permit a GOP nominee to capture the White House even while losing the popular vote by many millions. This is not a relatively small Electoral College "misfire" on the order of 1888 or 2000. Instead, it is a corrupt and cynical maneuver to frustrate popular will and put a heavy thumb -- the whole hand, in fact -- on the scale for future Republican candidates... A party in decline is Nixonian and fears the future; it sees enemies everywhere, feels overwhelmed by electoral trends, and thinks it can win only by cheating, by subverting the system and stacking the deck in its favor.

And reading Abramowitz's insightful commentary confirms the worst ---that the current Republican Party has wholeheartedly embraced a power-grabbing philosophy, which one usually finds in the worst tyrants and which threatens to make a mockery of our democratic traditions. As Sabato explains:

As the electorate continues to become less white and more liberal in its outlook on social issues, Republicans have two choices about how to improve their party's prospects in future presidential elections. One approach would be to adopt more moderate positions on issues such as immigration, abortion, gay rights and health care in order to make their party more appealing to young people, women and nonwhites. But that strategy would risk alienating a large portion of the GOP's current base, especially those aligned with the Tea Party movement. So rather than adopting that risky strategy, some Republican leaders appear to be opting for a different approach -- changing the electoral rules to make it easier for a Republican candidate to win the presidency despite losing the popular vote.

Several Republican governors and state legislative leaders in key battleground states have recently expressed support for a plan to change the method of awarding their state's electoral votes from the current winner-take-all system to one in which one vote would be awarded to the winner of each congressional district in the state and two votes would be awarded to the statewide winner. In the aftermath of the GOP's 2012 defeat, this plan appears to be gaining momentum and was recently endorsed by the chairman of the Republican National Committee, Reince Priebus...

...There is a serious problem with this approach. Despite a superficial appearance of fairness, the congressional district plan would be profoundly undemocratic -- skewing the results in favor of the party drawing the congressional district lines in a state and greatly increasing the chances of an Electoral College misfire (a victory by the candidate losing the national popular vote)...Despite Obama's comfortable margin in the national popular vote, a system that awarded one electoral vote for each House district plus two votes for the statewide winner would have resulted in a Romney victory by 276 electoral votes to 262 electoral votes.

And it gets a lot worse if Republicans are able to force proportional allocation on key 'battleground' states they have targeted. As Abramowitz notes,

...There is a chance that this system could be adopted by six battleground states that were carried by Obama in both 2008 and 2012 but where Republicans currently control the governorship and both houses of the legislature: Florida, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin...If these six battleground states were to adopt the congressional district method of awarding electoral votes, it would not guarantee a Republican victory in the 2016 presidential election but it would make such a victory much more likely. That's because the congressional district lines in these states were gerrymandered by Republican legislatures following the 2010 census to give their party a huge advantage. As a result, even though Obama carried all six states in 2012, it appears that Romney carried 61 House districts in these states to only 33 for Obama. Romney appears to have carried 16 of 27 House districts in Florida, 9 of 14 House districts in Michigan, 12 of 16 House districts in Ohio, 12 of 18 House districts in Pennsylvania, 7 of 11 House districts in Virginia and 5 of 8 House districts in Wisconsin.

If the congressional district system had been used in these six states in 2012, instead of Obama winning all of their 106 electoral votes, it appears that Romney would have won 61 electoral votes to only 45 for Obama. As a result, Obama's margin in the national electoral vote would have been reduced from 332-206 to only 271-267.

The result would not just be disastrous for the Democratic Party; It could also do profound damage to democracy in the U.S., as Abramowitz concludes:

Under current circumstances, the congressional district system could well result in a Republican victory even if the Democratic candidate were to win the popular vote by a substantial margin. Such a situation would undoubtedly lead to widespread questioning of the legitimacy of the election and, potentially, a public backlash against the victorious Republican candidate and the GOP itself. Before engaging in a cynical attempt to rig the electoral system, Republican leaders and strategists should consider the potential harm that their actions could do to our democratic form of government and to their own party.

It is a sad day when one of America's two most venerable parties decides it can only win by thwarting the will of the people. As Sabato suggests, the GOP's devolution to "Nixonian" manipulation leaves our system with only one party that practices fair politics and ernestly seeks majority support.

At Larry J. Sabato's Crystal Ball, Alan I. Abramowitz's "Republican Electoral College Plan Would Undermine Democracy" provides a revealing overview of the latest GOP effort to dominate politics through morally-corrupt 'reforms'. In an introduction to Abramowitz's post, editor Sabato, who writes from a nonpartisan perspective, has this to say about the revelations in the post:

We have asked Crystal Ball Senior Columnist Alan Abramowitz, Alben W. Barkley Professor of Political Science at Emory University, to examine the proposal and outline its likely effects. As we suspected, it would permit a GOP nominee to capture the White House even while losing the popular vote by many millions. This is not a relatively small Electoral College "misfire" on the order of 1888 or 2000. Instead, it is a corrupt and cynical maneuver to frustrate popular will and put a heavy thumb -- the whole hand, in fact -- on the scale for future Republican candidates... A party in decline is Nixonian and fears the future; it sees enemies everywhere, feels overwhelmed by electoral trends, and thinks it can win only by cheating, by subverting the system and stacking the deck in its favor.

And reading Abramowitz's insightful commentary confirms the worst ---that the current Republican Party has wholeheartedly embraced a power-grabbing philosophy, which one usually finds in the worst tyrants and which threatens to make a mockery of our democratic traditions. As Sabato explains:

As the electorate continues to become less white and more liberal in its outlook on social issues, Republicans have two choices about how to improve their party's prospects in future presidential elections. One approach would be to adopt more moderate positions on issues such as immigration, abortion, gay rights and health care in order to make their party more appealing to young people, women and nonwhites. But that strategy would risk alienating a large portion of the GOP's current base, especially those aligned with the Tea Party movement. So rather than adopting that risky strategy, some Republican leaders appear to be opting for a different approach -- changing the electoral rules to make it easier for a Republican candidate to win the presidency despite losing the popular vote.
Several Republican governors and state legislative leaders in key battleground states have recently expressed support for a plan to change the method of awarding their state's electoral votes from the current winner-take-all system to one in which one vote would be awarded to the winner of each congressional district in the state and two votes would be awarded to the statewide winner. In the aftermath of the GOP's 2012 defeat, this plan appears to be gaining momentum and was recently endorsed by the chairman of the Republican National Committee, Reince Priebus...
...There is a serious problem with this approach. Despite a superficial appearance of fairness, the congressional district plan would be profoundly undemocratic -- skewing the results in favor of the party drawing the congressional district lines in a state and greatly increasing the chances of an Electoral College misfire (a victory by the candidate losing the national popular vote)...Despite Obama's comfortable margin in the national popular vote, a system that awarded one electoral vote for each House district plus two votes for the statewide winner would have resulted in a Romney victory by 276 electoral votes to 262 electoral votes.

And it gets a lot worse if Republicans are able to force proportional allocation on key 'battleground' states they have targeted. As Abramowitz notes,

...There is a chance that this system could be adopted by six battleground states that were carried by Obama in both 2008 and 2012 but where Republicans currently control the governorship and both houses of the legislature: Florida, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin...If these six battleground states were to adopt the congressional district method of awarding electoral votes, it would not guarantee a Republican victory in the 2016 presidential election but it would make such a victory much more likely. That's because the congressional district lines in these states were gerrymandered by Republican legislatures following the 2010 census to give their party a huge advantage. As a result, even though Obama carried all six states in 2012, it appears that Romney carried 61 House districts in these states to only 33 for Obama. Romney appears to have carried 16 of 27 House districts in Florida, 9 of 14 House districts in Michigan, 12 of 16 House districts in Ohio, 12 of 18 House districts in Pennsylvania, 7 of 11 House districts in Virginia and 5 of 8 House districts in Wisconsin.
If the congressional district system had been used in these six states in 2012, instead of Obama winning all of their 106 electoral votes, it appears that Romney would have won 61 electoral votes to only 45 for Obama. As a result, Obama's margin in the national electoral vote would have been reduced from 332-206 to only 271-267.

The result would not just be disastrous for the Democratic Party; It could also do profound damage to democracy in the U.S., as Abramowitz concludes:

Under current circumstances, the congressional district system could well result in a Republican victory even if the Democratic candidate were to win the popular vote by a substantial margin. Such a situation would undoubtedly lead to widespread questioning of the legitimacy of the election and, potentially, a public backlash against the victorious Republican candidate and the GOP itself. Before engaging in a cynical attempt to rig the electoral system, Republican leaders and strategists should consider the potential harm that their actions could do to our democratic form of government and to their own party.

It is a sad day when one of America's two most venerable parties decides it can only win by thwarting the will of the people. As Sabato suggests, the GOP's devolution to "Nixonian" manipulation leaves our system with only one party that practices fair politics and ernestly seeks majority support.